It Gets Cold When She's Not Around
by SILENTMUSINGS
Summary: She knits, she speaks to ducks, to her candy is the answer to everything. Love can be found in the most unlikely of places and people. Will Punk accept it when it comes?
1. She Makes A Lot Of Abstract Art

**First story? Hell yes. I've had this idea in my head for a while,****  
I hope you like it, loves. All character other than the main OC (probably****  
some other OC's who'll be introduced later, too) are not mine. They  
****belong to themselves, the WWE and Vinnie Mac.  
Story title lyrics from Antonia by Motion City Soundtrack.**

**:)  
**

He looked down at the angel asleep on his chest. How could it be so easy, so simple for _just a girl_ to make him smile? She hadn't even become a successful conquest yet. Granted, she had never been one in his mind at all. It was just that for a while before her 'conquering' someone had been the only thing that had been able to put a smile on his face - albeit a know-it-all, cocky one.

But her? Just the thought of being beside her lit up his features. This girl had such a huge hold over him after only such a short amount of time. It was a whole new feeling, but for once it did not scare him.

Shuffling around on top of him, her makeshift pillow, to try to readjust her position, he didn't miss the incoherent mumble that left her lips. It only enamored him more. He watched her intently, noticing some things he already had and more. Her tiny frame was no more than a bag of groceries in his arms. It would be so easy for him to hurt her, even accidentally. The thought occurred to him each and every day.

He was used to beating people half to death and vice-versa - all in the name of sports entertainment - but even the idea of something happening to her? He wouldn't be able to live with himself. She was just so.. small, so completely delicate. Beside his own height of just over six feet, her five foot one felt almost pocket sized. It was just another thing to add to the list of things he adored about her.

Without so much as a thought he began to rub small circles on her back through the thin and likely well-worn fabric of her t-shirt. It wasn't so much thread-bare as it was a little shabby, like it had survived many, many years of use.

He would know. It was his.

The small action of his soft touch was enough for her to begin to stir. He took the moment to take in the scene, knowing that the days when he awoke first came few and far between.

Her hair was splayed perfectly over his chest. Her head rested just high enough up that her arm was wrapped around his torso, her hand tucked under him in a hold as though to prevent him from leaving. Not that he would even think of it. The other of her hands clung gently to his own, which snaked around her small waist. Her fully-clothed body fit in with his perfectly, like missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. It was as though their contours were made to fit together in the first place.

At that moment nothing could have been more perfect. Not with a million world titles, not with all of his friends there to share the moment, not even if he had the chance to gain everything that he had ever wanted. Then and there all that meant was her. For as long as he could have her. It would most likely mean fooling her into believing that he was everything she deserved - oh, how he knew that she deserved so much more than him. He told himself every day. She deserved to be a princess while he was nothing more than a man who ran around in lycra underwear for a living. Never had he thought a girl like her would cross his path. Never did he think he would want her to be his forever. Never had it been a large priority in his life. Oh, how things had changed.

Aware that she was now awake, he made no gesture to prove that he was, also. It wouldn't take long at all for her to become aware of his fully-conscious presence. Neither took credit for any kind of psychic abilities, they were just tuned in to one another in a way that nobody seemed to understand. As if on cue, she stirred even more. Tilting her head so that their eyes could meet, she offered him one of those light-up-the-room smiles. He couldn't help but immediately show a crooked grin of his own. There it was again, that effect she had on him, he just couldn't escape it. He didn't mind.

Stretching her neck to enable her to give a quick kiss to the stubble on his chin adoringly, she lay her head back on his chest.

"Morning, sweetheart." He greeted.

"Good morning to you, Pinkie."

A roll of his eyes. "I'll never live it down, will I?"

Pausing for a moment of mock thought, she shook her head. "Never. Don't worry, I still love you."

Without even bothering to try to shield his feelings, a smile immediately erupted upon his features - a larger one than what had already been there, at least. That happened a lot when the two were together. Perhaps they weren't meant to be - what with the difference in their ages, personalities, beliefs, even their families - but the attraction? Oh, how it enraptured him. The invisible string that held them together, it was stronger than the toughest metal he could think of. He was completely caught up; in the side of him that only came out when she was around, in the warmth that surrounded him at her very touch, in her. She was the key to all that he had ever really wanted and all that he had never even thought to ask for.

That may just be the wonder of it all. That unconditional adoration they held for one another was unexplainable. Both felt it, it was electric. Even just laying there sleepily, something else was at play. It always had been, since the very first time that he saw her brilliant blue eyes.

* * *

He always drew the short straw. It was just his luck. Everyone got to sit back and relax happily while he was the one running errands around the place. Of course he wasn't about to let them all wreak havoc about the city they were in with hang-overs the size of a small nation, but that didn't mean he couldn't feel like maybe he should put his foot down once in a while. Why did he owe it to them at all?

Truth be told, he didn't mind being the one to make coffee runs, even Tylenol and groceries were fine by him. Alcohol runs? Well he drew the line there, obviously. Luckily none of the guys had ever bothered to ask him. Everyone knew his boundaries and they all respected them. That was possibly the reason why he didn't so much mind helping out any of the guys when they did ask. It wasn't as though he was a bad person who would just say no straight off - it was quite the opposite, in fact. That was another likely factor in his extremely giving approach, there were many.

He was half asleep, almost unable to function and dressed in only a t-shirt and boxer shorts, but he really didn't care. One would think that being on television for all to see would change this, but no. He was no different that Britney Spears or any other person in the tabloids. Without the blatant promiscuity most showed. All he wanted was to be a normal guy. Having to drag another half asleep (and non-willing) man with him didn't help his outlook, either. It did nothing to steer his non-caring approach in the other direction.

John Morrison was not a guy who wanted to be awake at roughly 8:30 in the morning. He had no trouble letting the other man know this. But for him it was all part of the amusement, as torturous as that happened to be.

"C'mon," He beckoned his friend out of the passenger seat. "The faster we get this done, the faster you can get back to the hotel."

With a grunt and a moan, the man who made up his currently worse-for-wear company picked himself up out of the car, huffing and complaining the whole time. He would burn in hell? Alright. A horrible accident would happen to him one day? Sure, whatever, John. He found it better to agree with whatever his sleepy friend said, when he was in such a foul mood at least, despite the immense amusement he got from it.

It didn't take long for the two to reach entrance having parked as close as possible. Even after only traveling that short distance, swagger was prominent in both man's step. The automatic doors opened, providing sudden relief from the already-warming day. He greeted this happily. He wasn't usually a summer kind of guy, only on the odd occasion did he get sick of rain lashing the windows and the gray skies that accompanied winter weather. Maybe it was just him, but it was never something that had mattered to the dark haired man. Being the only one with a certain opinion, that is.

Grabbing a basket from the high-stacked pile, he made his way to the maze of aisles that lay in front of him. He didn't quite know where to start. Not even the glowing signs from the ceiling of the building provided the help he needed. Morrison had already sulked off somewhere - most likely to the beverages, or to try to make his way through the many different sections to find them. He would do that too. He was bound to stumble across the things he needed if he looked everywhere, right? Well, it was the only game plan he had, it would have to do. At least he wouldn't miss out anything.

He was about to begin his adventure, he'd even stuck his foot out to take the first step into the unknown territory of an unknown grocery store, but he was halted in his step. By what? By nothing but a flying cart. He had been about to turn the corner into the closest aisle, but he was glad that he hadn't. Being taken out by an uncontrolled shopping trolley was not in has plan for the day. How had it moved on its own? No, wait - there had been someone on the edge.

The cart collided with a barrier that stood behind him. The person fell off, onto the ground. He was so bewildered. He made his way over to the girl (He took for granted that 'she' was, in fact, a girl. All that he saw was was the back of a head, a mess of blond hair), making the assumption that she was writhing in pain.

He was taken aback, however, when instead of hearing moans of pain he was greeted with what seemed to be uncontrollable laughter. Worried for the girls' sanity, he bent down beside her small form and rested a hand on her shoulder, not saying a word.

It took the girl a few seconds to control her bubbly giggles. Her chest heaving, she turned her body to face him. Her movements weren't jerky as he expected they would be what with her having no idea who it was interrupting her laughter; they were quite the opposite. Fluid, even comfortable. He noticed before she had fully turned that she wore the same black dress pants and celadon green shirt that the employees at the numerous checkouts wore. It explained a lot, but put a whole lot more questions in his head also.

Ready to ask if she was alright, he opened his mouth to speak. For the second time in only a few short seconds he was stopped in his tracks. Not by a runaway shopping cart, but by the brightest blue eyes he had ever seen.

**I'd love to hear your reviews! :]**


	2. She Haggles For The Cheapest Price

**Okay, so this part's slow, I'm sorry. It's all about her point of view and  
****introductions and such. I promise it won't be so boring later. Characters****  
belong to themselves, the WWE and Vinnie Mac.  
Story title lyrics from Antonia by Motion City Soundtrack.**

She was an early riser - a definite morning person. Her boss liked that in a worker. Opening and closing shifts were the worst in terms of staff. They were all forever wanting to change times and swap with others and generally giving him a hard time. She was different. She didn't seem to mind those awkwardly early and late shifts. In fact, she quite preferred them. She didn't even need to have ingested seven coffees before she was fully awake like most other people she worked with.

She was more of an orange juice kind of person, anyway. She could live on that stuff, but even in the morning she didn't necessarily _need_ to have any. Just shower, brush teeth, get dressed and do something with her mop of hair and she was all set. She was just a simple girl. It didn't take her an hour in front of the mirror and you definitely couldn't scrape handfuls of make-up from her face each day. Her nails were always adorned with bright and eye-catching polish (usually in different neon shades), but that was a whole other matter.

She was up and at 'em. At 5 o'clock, ready for opening, she was as bright as a button. Happy, energetic, raring and ready to go, she was all set for her ten hour shift.

Energetic and enthusiastic. Two words that described her the very best. Both were exactly what the place needed, she knew that from the moment she stepped though the automatic doors. If there was anything at all that she would be able to bring to the team, well that was exactly it.

The surprise to most people? She actually had brought all of that and more to the dynamic of the place. Since she had begun working there was something very different about the Chicago branch of Safeway Inc. The one that she worked at, anyway. A new bounce in everybody's step, an unusually sincere smile on each employee's face. No one could really put their finger on why, but they knew that it had something to do with her. Every Friday lunchtime she brought in home-baked biscuits with the sweetest icing you could ever taste whether she was working or not; she took the time to complement everybody she saw; it was hard to catch her during a time she _wasn't_ humming happily to herself. There was something about her that was completely genuine. She didn't try to hide that she wasn't the smartest person in the world, nor that she was as naive as one could imagine. But she was just so loving. No one could mistake that.

There were two people in the team that she clicked with the very most. Meera and Hamish, her best friends. They were both completely different people than her, but the three just clicked.

Meera was Indian. She was the prettiest girl in the whole world, in her friend's opinion. There were major differences between the two of them. While she was sweet and naive, Meera was full of spunk and attitude. She was also a lot more.. experienced. She found her little friend completely adorable because of that very fact, and felt it her job to take her under her motherly wing. They were sisters.

Subsequently, if the two were sisters then the third and final member of their group was the older brother. Hamish was a trouble maker, he was devilish and the most hilarious person either of the girls had ever met. All that he wanted in life was to play baseball, but when the realization hit him that making it big would mean working and traveling all the time, well the motivation just wasn't there anymore.

They all got along fabulously, though when they happened to work the same shift there was sure to be some kind of mischief going on. As long as it didn't disturb the customers their boss turned a blind eye. At least the three made things interesting for the less interested employees.

As long as the customers were happy. If not, there was a problem.

There were ways they had found to avoid the wrong kind of attention from customers, anyway. Waiting until break time and being confined to the staff room were two of the most effective. Taking the early shifts that involved stocking shelves when only one or two people walking around the place, well it both fulfilled their shift requirements and gave them the space to goof off.

That day was one of those ones they loved. Meera and Hamish were rotating from the checkout to stocking shelves, while her job was just to stock shelves, move misplaced items, clean shelves, reorder things, all of those above jobs. It was only around seven in the morning and both she and Hamish were beginning to wreak havoc already.

Their incessant banter and giggling could be heard all throughout the store. Luckily for them, they were the only ones currently occupying the space. For an hour, possibly longer, they played whatever they could find to pass the time like their favourite game - Marco Polo (though their version was on land instead of water, obviously, and took a look longer to end). They also took turns whistling or humming a tune while the other tried to guess what it was. Despite how average their lives were, it was all they could really do to pass the time.

All three had expected things to begin to pick up - and their bored states of mind to be quelled. Unfortunately for them this didn't seem to be happening. She and Hamish, were feeling the pain of the situation, especially. Wandering around the many aisles of the store got very old after only a short amount of time.

Finally, after finally meeting her wits end, she turned to her friend with one last boredom-buster in mind.

"Trolleys?"

The evil smile that immediately made its way onto Hamish's face was a telling tale that they should have shot-down the idea at that very moment. Unfortunately for them, neither possessed that kind of willpower; at least not at that point in time. Hamish quickly rushed off to find one of the many shopping carts which were pushed together, waiting to be full of people's grocery needs. She wasn't counting, but it had to have been some kind of record, as it seemed he was back by her side after only a moment. Maybe, perhaps she was just not very good at keeping track of time passing.

"You jump on the end and I'll push you. It's my turn next," He urged her, a devilish grin still quite evident on his face.

All that she could do was display the same look and hoist herself up onto the edge. Her feet weren't even close to the ground, the dangled dangerously, as though trying to make the obvious flaws to their plan evident. Once again, it was unfortunate that it was too late into their adventure and she was too invested in the thrill to do much more than make a mental note.

"Ready?"

"Of course. Ready for take-off." She insisted, the last sentence in a put-on electronic voice. Holding on to the hand-hold, he gave a small chuckle at the weird tone that filled her voice, but began the run up down the aisle of liquid detergents, mops and other household cleaning supplies. About mid-way through, he gave an almighty push and let go, watching the small blond girl glide the rest of the way.

All that she wanted was to put a hand over her mouth to muffle her squeak, but that would mean having to release even the smallest amount of grip on the cart. As much as she enjoyed it, she wasn't that stupid.

Before she knew it, only a second or two had gone by and she had reached the end of the aisle. It was at that point that one would expect the trolley to slow; she certainly did. But that wasn't what happened. She didn't even have time to lower herself from the edge to try to avoid the impact of the barrier that separated the large amount of aisles and the entrance. Nothing could stop her small body colliding with the metal, but she barely even noticed the impact.

She crumpled to the floor, slightly winded, but otherwise she was completely fine. A bruise would most likely form in the next few minutes, and it would start to ache once the adrenaline wore off, but she was feeling fantastic at that moment. Giggles erupted from her lungs, the feeling was amazing - almost flying. And she was still high.

The feeling of someone's hand on her shoulder didn't move her at all. She figured it was just Hamish checking whether or not she was delirious. She took a few moments to try to compose herself before swiveling her body around to face him. The moment didn't do too much good, though. There was still a large, impish grin on her face and the occasional innocent snicker.

The smile slid from her face though when she found that it wasn't Hamish whose eyes she met, but a man she had never seen before in her life. Her look of pure joy turned to one of somewhat confusion. His mouth was open, as if he were about to say something, but no words left his lips. She waited a few moments for him to get out whatever it was that he wanted, but nothing did come.

"Can I help you?" She asked, genuinely. Her eyebrow furrowed slightly in worry.

Her words seemed to shake him out of the stupor he was caught in and he blinked as if trying to gather his thoughts. If she hadn't been so confused it would have been oddly comical. And where was Hamish? Had he run off.

"Sorry," The stranger spoke finally, "I just kind-of saw what happened, and I wanted to see whether you were okay..."

All the confusion was swept from her face, she swore her heard melted for the kind-hearted man.

"Oh, don't worry about me." She insisted, shaking her head. "I'm a-okay! It'll probably hurt in an hour or so, but I'll be fine."

His features relaxed considerably. He nodded, standing up and offering her his hand. Without a moments hesitation she accepted, pulling herself to her feet and dusting off her pants.

"Thanks." She smiled once more, not knowing whether it was sufficient enough for her own taste. He smiled back. Apart from that, though, the silence seemed to pierce the air between them.

"Well, I guess I'd better go find my friend.." He ran a hand through his shoulder length black hair after a few moment of nothing.

"Okay."

He turned his back and began to walk away. Was it really that easy? 'Okay'? It couldn't be. he was so sweet for no reason, what was she thinking?

"Wait.." He stopped, as she had hoped, and turned. An eyebrow was raised, questioning her. 'What's up?' She could hear his gravelly voice saying inside her own head.

"Um, do you need any help with your grocery and homegood needs?"

She never said that she was a good talker, but even by her standards it was dreadful. Now it was her turn to run a hand through her hair, clutching it at the base of her neck nervously. He chuckled, surprisingly it soothed her. She thought it would be the exact opposite.

Her lips turned upwards in a grin and she took the few steps that she needed to find herself beside him. She wasn't as nervous as only a few seconds before.

"I'm Lillie."


End file.
